Despite the game's namesake being a high tech armored harrier-type jet, Warhawk is a true multi-modal experience. Ground vehicles and infantry are just as important as the Warhawks, and surprisingly equally well developed. The game has a bit of a silly backstory to give a bit of reasoning behind the "good" blue-labeled Eucadian forces and the "evil” red-labeled Chernovan army. But really, it doesn't matter as they have the same abilities, bases and vehicles, just with different stylings and customization options. All you need to know is that there are two teams, with up to 16 players per team, and a number of battlefields to blow each other up on.

Upon loading up the game and getting connected, you are presented with the option to join or create a local or online game for up to 32 players, customize your character/vehicle's look and controls, and view you stats/profile along with a number of other community-based options such as clans. If you've purchased the Blu-ray version as opposed to downloading the PSN version, you also have an additional option to view extra bonus content like a making-of video, high-def trailers, etc. If browsing for a match to join, there is a pretty simple set of filters and sorting options (ping, game type, # of players, etc.) to trim down the game results to only those particular ones you may be interested in. In general, the game browser works well, but as of this review there are times when the availability of open player slots in a particular game and the ping is just clearly wrong even after refreshing the stats for that specific server (which is a nice touch). This can sometimes make joining a specific game a little frustrating during really busy times - which seems to be nearly all the time thus far. On the game creation side, there are ton of options and rules to select from and tweak, including the awesome ability to setup your PlayStation 3 as a dedicated ranked server for others to use. And speaking of dedicated, Sony has gone out of their way to set up literally hundreds of such servers (on actual PS3 units no less) around the world to host these types of games, which really shows their commitment to the game. It is also worth mentioning that if you have a few friends and Sixaxii controllers, you can all play offline via split screen or system link, or better yet, take part in online games. The dynamic screen divisioning is really well done.

Warhawk is structured in a rather straightforward, arcade-like fashion. You have several large maps ranging from an expansive dusty desert, to a lush jungle island environment completely surrounded by water and a city suspended high above the clouds. These territories are then further broken into a number of battlefields on which various battles can take place. Depending on the mode, these areas are filled with various vehicles, bases, weapons and a multitude of potential objectives. Regardless of the map or mode, everybody on either team can do every thing. There are no character classes to choose from, and whatever role you'd like to play within the game is entirely up to you. Want to be a Top Gun? Then perfect your Warhawk flying and dogfighting skills. Want to be a stealthy marksman? Then load up with a sniper rifle and laser guided binoculars, climb a mountain and hide out. How about a demolitions expert? Grab a tank, a rocket launcher and mines and you're good to go. Either way, players are required to not only be on offense, but also defense and support roles. The straight up every-man-for-himself deathmatches are exactly what you would expect, but honestly, Warhawk was built around teamwork, and the team-based games and modes are far more commonplace and enjoyable. Nearly all team-based games besides dogfight-only mode (even team deathmatch) have control points and bases that can be captured and controlled which add to the gameplay strategy. Capturing and defending neutral/enemy bases is just as important as attacking the enemy, and the scoring structure reflects that. The person/team with the most kills is not necessarily the "winner" of a match; there's much more granularity than that. The decision to break out the importance of the non-offensive roles really adds to Warhawk's broad appeal. If you completely suck at flying the Warhawk or marching into an enemy base with guns-a blazing, then you can easily play defense or work on sneakily capturing enemy territory and still be just as important of a factor to the team's score as other members of the team.

Gameplay, balancing and weapons can make or break a game like Warhawk, and after extensive tweaking and beta testing Incognito got it just about right. Being an arcade-style, 3rd person multiplayer game, Warhawk keeps things moving nicely. Your characters are speedy and nimble, and have a cartoon-like bounce in their step. They can run, jump, crouch and survive 50' drops with nary a scratch. Infantry has access to a large cache of explosives, short, medium and long-range weapons and vehicles of varying types including 3 types of stationary turrets and launchers. The explosions are always spectacular, and you'll actually never notice that the game has next to no blood or gore to speak of (which is a rarity these days). Controls are more or less of the pick-up and play variety but the developer of course still provided plenty of control-tweak options for those who want to fine tune it.

You can tell an insane amount of work went into getting the flying controls and air combat in Warhawk just right. Besides the hover and flight modes, the Warhawks are unbelievably smooth to fly once you get some practice in. The game starts you out with a more basic, more stable control scheme, but after a while it is advantageous to move up to pro-controls which provides full maneuverability. If you are really brave and have a steady hand, you can even turn on the (optional) Sixaxis motion controls which offers the absolute most advanced controls over your flying machine. Either way, you'll be barrel rolling, making Immelman turns, and blowing stuff up with the greatest of ease. Practice is an absolute necessity however, and it's worth it to setup a local game for yourself just to get a handle on the controls and also to tweak the options until it feels just right. Besides your standard machine guns and swarm missiles, the Warhawks themselves have access to several distinct types offensive and defensive weapons usually scattered around each map (a charged energy weapon, remote controlled TOW missile, a cloaking kit, air mines, cluster bombs, chaff, etc.) Like the ground based weapons, the balancing feels just about right. The standard machine gun actually has enough power to make a difference, and thanks to differing respawn rates, there is not one totally dominant weapon to be abused.

For what it does, Warhawk is a graphical tour-de-force thanks to a really solid and dynamic engine. The engine, which was also utilized for Calling All Cars earlier in the year, seamlessly and effortlessly handles the transition from air, to vehicle, to foot combat. The game runs at a solid 30 fps with 32 players blowing each other up simultaneously on ground and in the air, and the ability literally view the entire battlefield at once. There's no pop-in, glitching or much in the way of slowdown, tearing or dropped frames. The explosions, which frequently send fire and debris raining down upon the landscape, are the real stars of the show.

On the audio end, Warhawk also does not disappoint. While there is not much in the way of music, the sound effects and the absolutely perfect 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound is top notch. Positional audio is used to great effect and hearing (and feeling) a Warhawk scream overhead, or a missile fly by is pure ear candy. You can actually pick out where certain shots are coming from just by audio alone, and actually becomes a pretty important part of your environmental awareness in the game.

If there's anything I have an issue with regarding the game, it would have to be the (currently) wonky stat tracking, the complete lack of a single player mode of any type, and the somewhat overly restrictive DRM model on the downloadable version. The heart of Warhawk is the stats you accrue and the medals, ranks, awards and ribbons you earn in ranked matches. While Sony has claimed this should have been fixed, there are a number of times when the stats of ranked games have not been properly recorded. There is definitely a delay, which is okay for a stat heavy game of this type that keeps an online profile, but for it to occasionally completely lose stats and demote your rank randomly hours later (thus blowing all your customizations away) is not. It seems to have improved somewhat but sporadic issues still remain unfortunately. It should also be a given these days to have a way to check up on your own stats progress via the web in an online stat driven game. That functionality is supposed to be "coming soon" (according to Warhawk.com at least), but instead of an afterthought it should have been there on day one even if it were just a simple one-page snapshot. Additionally, even though I'm satisfied with the game's online multiplayer-only objective, I feel a little cheated by not having even a simple single player bot mode or even an A.I-less tutorial/practice mode. It's something that could be added as a downloadable patch or add-on, but whether or not they'll actually do it remains to be seen. The strict DRM on the digitally downloaded copy has irked a number of people with the non-ability to let others who share your PS3 play the game using their own master or sub-account. I understand not allowing others to "share" the game remotely, but restricting others who play locally seems a little too restrictive. The Blu-ray version has no such DRM, and even though it requires a full install, the disc is still required to be in the tray for the game to start. It's still a good deal for either version though ($39.99 for downloadable; $59.99 for retail), and I actually prefer the retail Blu-ray version thanks to the included Jabra Bluetooth headset, which has worked great so far.

Besides a few small-ish quirks, Warhawk is amongst the most fun-to-play multiplayer games you are likely to play for quite some time... or ever for that matter. The complete lack of anything for single players hurts it a little bit, as does the unreliable stat tracking, though everything else is fine-tuned to near perfection. Even as a multiplayer-only war game, it literally has a little bit of everything for everybody, and current or prospective PlayStation 3 owners (with a broadband connection of course) would be foolish to overlook it.